The 2019 Middle School Marine Science (MS)2 Summer Workshop is accepting registrations from middle school earth and life science teachers interested in exploring the topic of marine science as it connects to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).  The workshop will be held at the Marine Institute at Sapelo Island and will involve hands-on activities. Teachers will also be introduced to 1-week ready-to-use classroom modules created by Georgia Tech with support from the National Science Foundation* and the ECOGIG project.  Through lectures by faculty, break-out discussion and lesson planning sessions, and hands-on lab and field exercises, the 4-day course (July 14-17, 2019) will disseminate teaching modules developed around cutting-edge marine science. Modules consist of lesson plans and project learning exercises that address key marine topics, such as ocean food webs, oil spills, and ocean salinity and oxygen shifts in response to global change. Click here for more information.

NASA’s App Development Challenge (ADC) provides an opportunity for middle and/or high school students to demonstrate the practice of coding and app development. In this ADC, students work in teams to develop an app that visualizes three minutes of simulated test data in support of the upcoming Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2) flight test. 
 
In June 2019, NASA will launch a full-stress test of the Orion spacecraft’s Launch Abort System (LAS), called Ascent Abort-2, which will demonstrate the LAS can send Orion and its crew a safe distance from a failing rocket if an emergency arises during ascent to orbit. This flight test is a critical step to demonstrate Orion’s safety as NASA leads the next steps of human exploration into deep space.
 
In Round 1 of this challenge, participants will have the opportunity to chat with NASA subject matter experts to learn tips on how to make the app the best it can be. Teams will then post videos of their app designs online for consideration by NASA to use in future missions. In Round 2, teams with favorable submissions advance to present their app in an interview with NASA engineers working on the AA-2 flight test. After this round, NASA will select student team/s for an all-expenses paid trip to a NASA field center in early summer, 2019.
 
The challenge begins on March 13, 2019 and Round 1 participation concludes with video submissions on May 1, 2019.  

For more information, download the flyer here.